CFOs and senior finance executives are dealing with a growing number of responsibilities and demands as a result of the novel coronavirus pandemic, according to a new report.
The report, from consulting firm Protiviti, found that the pandemic has been a wake-up call to finance departments that weren’t already investing, or weren’t investing enough, in cloud-based systems as they have struggled to shift to the remote work environment. Eighty percent of the 1,057 finance leaders surveyed ranked security and privacy of data as a top priority, while 78 percent cited enhanced data analytics, and 72 percent cited cloud-based applications.
Jason D. Turner is the Founder, President, and Chief Executive Officer of Venbrook Group, LLC. He is responsible for corporate leadership of the risk management, insurance and reinsurance broking firms, as well as developing and implementing core strategy, building infrastructure, and establishing the Venbrook vision and values systems. From modest origins as the sole proprietor of a retail brokerage, Turner has led Venbrook through a series of successful transitions and acquisitions.
Samara Cohen, senior managing director, is BlackRock's chief investment officer of ETF and index investments and a member of the firm's global executive committee.
Pat O'Donnell is chief executive officer of iPipeline. He joined the organization in November 2023, bringing robust industry knowledge and expertise to the role, including extensive experience in leading and overseeing software company operations, sales, and engineering.
O'Donnell joined iPipeline from Ministry Brands, the leading provider of software and services for faith-based, non-profit, and other purpose-driven organizations, where he led the organization as chief executive officer. In this role, O'Donnell played a key role in the company's success and oversaw a period of transformation and growth.
His experience includes serving as senior vice president, and later as president, of FLEETCOR, an Atlanta-based leading global business payments company.
O'Donnell also held roles of increasing responsibility during his nearly 24 years with ADP, a member of the Fortune 500 and global technology company providing human capital management solutions, including as senior vice president and Division Vice President of Major Accounts.
Of those respondents who are CFOs and vice presidents of finance, 72 percent ranked cloud-based applications as a top priority to address over the next 12 months. Seventeen percent ranked cloud-based applications as the most important finance priority for their organizations to address, signifying a big jump from the 8 percent of respondents who indicated so in a similar survey by Protiviti last year.
“Having the right technology infrastructure and cloud capabilities is now considered a baseline in order to operate effectively and efficiently and will continue to be as organizations move into a hybrid work environment,” said Chris Wright, managing director and global leader of Protiviti’s Business Performance Improvement practice, in a statement. “COVID-19 disruptions underscored the critical nature of a truly digital finance workforce and companies without advanced technologies and digital processes faced a difficult transition to remote work. We’re now seeing an increasing number of boards and CEOs tap their finance leaders for guidance about whether their organization is allocating enough resources to their technology infrastructure.”
Labor models are changing, in part as a result of the pandemic, with 18 percent of the finance leaders surveyed saying their organizations are relying on managed services providers, while 29 percent are augmenting their staff to handle financial planning and analysis with greater speed and agility.
